A Virgin's Blood
by EmptyLighter
Summary: This one's a little different. PreFFVII. Where and how, precisely, did Sephiroth become what we recognize?
1. Robette & Daughter

"Mail's here, mama. There's something from the City."

"Lord, I hope it's not another bill. Give it here, girl."

Lona went to the kitchen to find a snack, dropping the rest of the mail on the kitchen table.

"Oh, well, shit," her mother said conversationally from the other room.

"What is it, mama?"

"None of your business. Go on and get back to that bridesmaid's dress. It's due Thursday, remember?"

"I was just getting a snack." She lounged in front of the fridge, door open, trying to decide between casserole one and casserole two. She grabbed a pickle instead. "What's in the letter?"

"It's just an order. Did you get the two-hole buttons like I asked you?"

"Of course. What order, mama? Who in the City wants us to make something?"

"I thought I told you to get back to that bridesmaid's dress." She turned away, pushing the letter into her pocket. She walked through the slightly crooked doorway between the house and the shop crammed from floor to windowtops with boxes of lace, felt, silk, buttons, ribbons, and pins; bags of buttons and snaps and closures; skeins of yarn, spools of thread, envelopes of needles, from fat knitting needles to beading needles almost too fine to pick up; bowls of pins, thimbles and sequins; rolls of leather, carpet, upholstery and brocade.

The sign in the window read "Lady Robette's Fine Sewing, Costuming and Alterations," but it was already Lady Robette and Daughter, and it would be Lona's when her mother's hands were too trembling to thread a needle and her eyes too dim to sew black on black.

Lona picked up the bridesmaid's dress, a cacophony of explosive green and blue ribbons over a tidal wave of minty fluff. The poor girl who had to wear it had brought it in for alterations, begging them to do something to make it just a little less hideous. Honestly there wasn't much they could do except pull the bodice in a bit tighter and discreetly remove some of the yards of flounce around the hem. Poor girl.

Robette was reading over the letter again, her back to her daughter, her face hard and slightly pale.

"Why aren't you happy?" Lona asked, working at a particularly difficult seam. She had to stretch the fabric six ways to Sunday, and it was making her testy. If there wasn't so damned _much_ of it, she wouldn't have to shove fifty pounds of fabric out of the way every time she turned the thing over…

"What?"

"It's an order from someone in the City. That's big cash. Don't tell me it's not. Why aren't you just thrilled?"

"You're asking too many questions," Robette said.

"I hate this dress." Lona tugged at the seam and her mother cast a sideways glance at it.

"You're pulling the wrong thread. Look, take the white one. It's a chain stitch. The whole thing will unravel if you pull that one. Use your head, girl."

"We're the best tailor's shop in the country," Lona said matter-of-factly, yanking the white thread. It slithered out with a dim crunching sound, leaving the other threads looped around the seam but no longer linked in place. She felt mildly stupid for not having noticed earlier. Lona combed the threads off with her fingers.

"Yes, we are," Robette replied distantly, "I only wish the military didn't know it."

"Are you serious? It's an order from the military? Good gods, what do they want, seven hundred pairs of tailored blue slacks with stupid stripes on the outside seam?"

"No, it's just one thing…" Robette stood up and started pushing through the stacks of boxes. Containers of exotic beads rattled like the teeth of corpses as she searched for something.

"Then what? One thing won't take long."

Robette turned to her daughter, distaste showing plainly on her face. "I just remembered I never really schooled you in the craft of tailoring for the extremely upper classes. They never want "just one thing". It's always tempered and aggravated by all sorts of ridiculous specifications. They never know what they want, and if somehow, magically, they do, they can never communicate it. They expect you to just pull it out of their heads without a description in the world. They don't want to pay for labor. They want it done yesterday. And God help you if you make a mistake because you're tired or hurt or ill. They don't know a damn thing about tailoring, but if they see a single error, whether real or imagined, they jump right down your throat about it. More than likely they want the whole thing done over."

"But what _is _it?" Lona demanded, not distracted by her mother's rant.

"It's a coat. Just one coat with a whole list of specifications."

"Well, if it's only one—"

Robette sighed. "If it were anyone else, I'd be as interested as you. You're going to have to take the other projects I've been working on. I need to give this all my attention."

"Do they really want it done yesterday?" In the dim light of the shop, Lona's golden-brown hair glimmered under the dancing dust-motes, and Robette was made painfully aware that her daughter was nearly grown up. Her hands were pale and long-fingered, wrapped in tape to protect from the sting of a needle gone suddenly renegade.

_Those hands should be tanned and strong, not pale and callused on the fingertips. I'm killing her, keeping her in this dark and dusty shop. She needs air. She needs a good life._

"It doesn't say so in as many words," Robette replied, "but it's certainly implied."

"I want to help with it."

"No. This is a delicate order."

"Well, when is the fitting? Can I at least watch you make it?"

Robette frowned, and Lona realized there really was something wrong here.

"There isn't going to be a fitting. They sent me all the measurements."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. How could they possibly have—"

Wordless, Robette held up the letter—at least five pages stapled together. From across the room, Lona saw the first sheet was a short letter, barely half the page. Robette flipped the pages for her. The rest of the sheaf, front and back, was covered with rows of data. Nine pages of it. Lona gaped.

"Everything I could ever wonder, as far as measurements go," Robette said dryly. "Wrist, chest and neck—and then some."

"I guess so," Lona said, awed. "What could that all possibly be?"

"They have, in effect, written the pattern for me, in degrees and angles. '_45 degrees from third vertebra to waist; Cuff circumference; Inseam to knee—"_

"Wait, what do you need that for if you're making a coat?"

"Darling, I have no idea. I told you, the upper class are all rather insane. Have you done a thing on that dress?"

"Mama… how are you supposed to make a coat without ever fitting it?"

"That's part of the test, I suppose." Robette made a motion as if to fling down the letter, then controlled herself and tucked it into her pocket once more.

"It's not a test, mama. It's a job."

"Of course it is. Now let's see some progress on those ribbons."

Lona walked quickly to the tanner's, her feet well accustomed to the way.

"Ah, it's Lady Robette's daughter. Welcome."

"Hello, Mr. Cote."

"What can I help you with?"

She showed him the ticket; not the biggest order for leather they'd ever placed, but the most for a single garment surely. The lining would be something close to satin, but must shed water. Her mother was waffling between treating the satin or going with another material entirely. Lona would not be allowed to do the actual cutting of the pieces, but there were dozens of long, straight seams her fingers could work quickly. She sat in the chair at the tanner's, swinging her feet and breathing the accustomed animal stink of chemicals and the sweet scent of treated leather.

"This is quite a hefty amount," Mr. Cote remarked as they wrapped the carefully rolled leather in tissue and tied it securely. "Making saddles?"

Lona paid him, then returned to the shop heavily burdened. The stones rolled and pitched under her feet, long-ago pavement crushed and cracked by heavy traffic.

Under the gold lamps of the tailor's shop the leather glistened, seemingly lit from within. It was incredibly supple and buttery. It smelled divine.

"This is expensive," Lona said simply, meaning it as a question. Her mother looked at her sharply.

"I told you the upper class is impossible to work with—I didn't say they're impossible to work _for. _There's a reason people do it."

"Did they pay in advance?"

"Only for the materials."

"It's so beautiful."

"And wait until you see it finished," Robette sighed, excited in spite of herself. If she was able to make this the way it was ordered, it would be a masterpiece. _Her_ masterpiece. She was too old; her peak was past. She would never get another commission so fine. Lona, maybe, if her hands proved as skilled as they were starting to become, but if the shop died with her, she wanted to know that at least she had finished this one piece.

"It won't take too long, right? It's all straight seams."

"Ordinarily, no."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Lona glanced up at her mother's graying hair, her blue eyes still bright.

"It's to be completely hand-sewn, God save us."

"Are you _joking_?"

"Not at all."

"There's no way," Lona moaned, looking over the expanse of leather, black as night, with a new gaze. "There's just no way."

"Double rows of stitching in every seam," her mother said.

Lona could only sit in shock.


	2. Stitching by Hand

"Use the chalk pencil and a ruler, girl, are you insane?"

"I can do it straight!" Lona's back hurt, her eyes were gritty and her fingers were sore from gripping the needle. The lamp was aggravating her headache.

The chalk pencil landed in her lap. The ruler was intended to be close behind but she jumped up to take it from her mother instead of being pelted with it.

"Who the hell is this for, anyway?"

"Someone with too much money and pride to be seen darkening our doorway."

"Well, then I hope he chokes on this damn coat, because I'm sick of looking at it."

"We haven't even set the sleeves yet. You had better not be sick of it."

Outside, a trio of young boys chased each other and their toys over the street. They splashed through puddles barefoot, flying over the rough ground, punching each other, shrieking in their high, serious voices.

_My daughter should be there, her muscles growing strong, resistant to illness. She should be free._

"Careful with that corner, Lona."

"I know, mother."

_She was that small once, and that quick on her feet. Now she's old enough to think about marriage. Lord, such a short time ago!_

"Mama, I think I can work on the outer pieces."

"I don't believe you should."

"But I can stitch as tiny as you! Look at this!" She held up the silky inner lining, put together tightly with stitches as small as the crossbar of a "t", perfectly straight, nubs like beads in the satin. The fabric lay like a blanket over her lap and puddled on the floor.

"Stitching by hand," her mother said gravely, "is as unique as an artist's brushstrokes. No two people sew alike."

"How could anyone ever tell?" Lona exploded, growing more frustrated by the minute.

"Normally, no one would," Robette said. She read the hot anger in her daughter's face and was relieved by it. She would grow up passionate and strong with desires like that. "But this is a very specific commission. Not one stitch can be out of place. If it's anything less than perfect—"

"What are they going to do, shoot you?" Sarcasm dripped from Lona's voice. She was angry, all right.

"They could. They very well could." Robette turned back to the leather, slick and warm under her fingers. Her stitches were perfect. Not one was out of place.

"Isn't there any embroidery on this? I'm bored to death with straight seams."

"No, Lona."

"How about a buttonhole?"

"It will have buckles."

"Can't I sign it somewhere? Inside the lining, maybe?"

"No, Lona."

"Well, dammit! This coat is going to be the most boring thing anyone's ever seen!"

A silence.

"No. It won't be boring at all. It's going to be quite beautiful."

"Mama…"

"Don't talk to me right now, girl."

They hung it up, infinitely careful not to let the leather stretch, on the dressmaker's form. It was only four clicks away from its tallest setting. The coat almost touched the floor. Many of the seams were only pinned, and the little flecks of silver appeared suddenly in Lona's vision as she walked around it, admiring the shape.

"Is it supposed to be floor length?"

"No, just to the calves, I believe."

"But it's so _big!_"

"It's for a tall man, Lona."

"He must be a monster."

The coat hung, sleeveless, like a shroud that had become animated and now sought its master. They stood in silence, Robette contemplating the type of officer who would commission a coat with such a range of motion; Lona simply trying to imagine what type of man would fit into such a magnificent garment. Her imagination was, unfortunately, not near so accurate as her mother's.

_The things this coat can do_, Robette thought, knowing the limits of leather, knowing its delicacy and its dislike for being rent and twisted; knowing, also, the strange instructions she had been given. To anyone else, they would have been pure nonsense. To someone with good knowledge, like Lona, they would have seemed redundant, bizarre, even slightly insane. But Robette had more than great experience; she had an instinctive kinship with the engineering of garments. She read through the detailed directives once with disbelief, a second time with a nagging curiosity; and the third time through, the full implications broke through to her amazed mind. Somehow this coat could move in ways leather was not made to move—not once it's off the beast, anyway. It was heavy and looked awkward, with all that expanse of material, but it could form and stretch with a body in any possible position.

The coat was engineered to fit to a body—

_Am I sewing a garment or a weapon?_ The thought came unbidden, and she clamped down on it. _Perhaps only the sheath for the weapon. Remember that, when you next hear of it. You created nothing dangerous, Robette…_

"Mother."

Robette looked up from the leather, the endless leather, her eyes throbbing from the strain of wrenching sight and shape from that deep blackness. Lona was silhouetted in the doorway, beautiful in the frame as she never was indoors. Her hair was mussed, hanging around her face in a shaggy mess, her eyes burning.

"Something wrong, Lona?" Robette parked her needle in the next chalk mark.

"This is for _Shinra_?" Lona demanded, unmoving.

Robette wasn't sure how to reply. "What? Of course it is. What do you think 'the military' means?"

"I know _that!_" Lona snapped, "But you didn't mention this was for the _officials_."

"What did you hear?" Robette was suddenly suspicious.

"I heard enough." Lona stepped into the shop.

"Who have you been talking to, girl?"

"The kids in the street! They know! They heard it from their parents! They know who's important, who's getting awards… They heard it from _higher up!_" She spoke these last two words as a sort of incantation.

"Girl—" Robette stood, her back and knees groaning in protest, having been cramped for hours under the leather, that endless damned leather. "—this is not your project. This is not something I'm keeping from you just for fun. This is one you can't help me with. So get it through your mulish head, do you understand me? You are not to touch this coat. You are to finish your projects as I assign them to you and no more. This is the most delicate piece I've ever worked on."

"I'm not a _child!_" Lona shouted, her face reddening. "Why won't you believe I can do this? Why won't you even _tell me_ who this is for?"

"Stop challenging me!" Robette screamed back. "Go to your room! _GO!_"

The girl ran through the shop and into the house. Doors slammed behind her, close and loud enough to rattle the beads in their boxes, then more distant: the door to her bedroom.


	3. Threaded in the Dark

Lona lit a candle, not daring to turn on the lights, but fearful also of the sweet scent of candlesmoke. She decided to risk it. It would be worth it.

She crept, barefoot and wraithlike in her pink robe, through the kitchen, the tile floor cold and gritty under her toes. The candle's flame wavered in her hand. She paused for it to regain strength and then moved on. Her left hand reached up, exploring the suddenly unfamiliar territory of the doorjamb—rough, wooden. The dark pressed in around her body. She found it hard to draw breath. Fantasies dispelled years ago returned with a vengeance and brought all their friends.

_Monsters_, she thought, and the idea didn't seem so fantastic in this palpable dark, her guilt already crushing her throat but making her heart feel larger, faster, desperate. She was excited, she realized. Thrilled.

Don't forget terrified.

The shop seemed like another world in this dark, the moon locked away from this hallowed interior by the thick, dusty curtains. It persevered, however, in oozing through the crack where the curtains were not shut quite tight. Lona reached for the elusive strip of silver glow and widened it. The fabric felt terribly heavy under her fingertips. Was the scratch of curtainhooks loud enough to wake her mother? It seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Her own heartbeat was pounding, her breath coming shallowly. She moved slowly, as a cat will, toward her own sewing table.

Lona didn't dare look at anything but her goal. Stay focused—move slowly—

Her hand closed over the reassuringly familiar shape of a spool, her needle stuck through the paper on the top, still threaded. Thank God. Now don't drop it.

Attention focused to a tiny point—to the end of a needle, glimmering in the moonlight, threaded with black that disappears into the thick, dripping shadow. Her fingers pale as a fish, rising into the slash of moon-white, sinking back with the thread between. She couldn't see it; she could barely feel it.

The coat was before her, broad-backed and tall—taller than her father, taller than any man she'd ever met-- stretching away above and below her line of sight like the cloak of a god. She crept toward it on feet terribly cold, and the moonlight over her shoulder made it seem to breathe. It wasn't on the beast, she told herself. It was long dead.

Why, then, did it make her pulse so close to her ears, her heart tight, as if it were a living threat? Her hand stretched toward it—she had never wanted anything so badly as to touch this coat in this moment. The need shrank her throat and made her spine want to curl on itself. She could have wept. She thought, in abstract and primal gestures, of caressing it, holding it, wrapping herself in its folds. She feared it. She needed to touch it. The spicy smell of leather sank into the air around her.

Lona sank to her knees before the coat, her fingertips lifting its hem as a peasant would to a king in some distant myth. The moon blazed behind her. She was below its staring white face now—she could look up into its beam, silvering the chest of the coat, illuminating the innocuous dressmaker's mannequin inside. For a beat of her heart the mannequin was ensouled. She glanced up and caught it between breaths. There was no motion excepting in her mind. Her eyes burned. Her lips moved, but no words were formed on them. The needle, pinched between her cold fingers, dipped into the seam like a sigh.

Robette slept deeply in the slumber of the just and hardworking, and did not wake when the moon crept across her face, tattling.

_This_, thought Lona, and her mental voice was sudden enough to make her jump as if someone had spoken aloud, _this is what I've been waiting for—_

Her hands moved across the surface, touching lightly as snowflakes, lightly enough to feel the texture of the leather without pressing into it. The heat of her hands reflected and gave the illusion of life. Was she the gently-moving hands or the leather, breathing sleepily under these delicate touches? Her own hands on her sides—cool fingertips tickling—which was she? With enough concentration, if she didn't blink, colors appeared in the deep, starless ocean before her. Blues and orange, green flickering into existence—the needle dipped and rose like a dolphin barely breaking the glassy top of the sea. Her hand guided it without thought and sight. When it pricked her finger, just beside the nail, her head jerked back as if on a string. A drop of blood welled in the dark. Her rhythm was unbroken. Her hair hung around her face like a curtain, and her blind eyes roamed before and behind her pale hands like a pack of the unspeakable.

She sat back, her knees grinding into the dusty shop floor, and the moon had lost interest to move off into the corner. How long had she been kneeling here, working her needle through the slick leather in the perfect blackness? Her candle was burnt down to a tired stump beside her ankles. She hadn't even moved it close enough to help her see. But the seam—it was perfect. Lona didn't need a light to tell her that. Her own fingers were enough.

Her bed welcomed her with cool, faintly rustling sheets, the sound of rain falling on roofs many, many stories up.


End file.
